


softly, gently (my heart is yours)

by wartransmission



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Drabble, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, New Years, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-01-01
Packaged: 2019-02-26 05:47:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13229310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wartransmission/pseuds/wartransmission
Summary: “Don’t you ever think you deserve better?” Yuuri asks.“Don’t you ever think that I think the same?” Viktor asks right back.





	softly, gently (my heart is yours)

**Author's Note:**

> **prompt:** [At my worst, I worry you’ll realize you deserve better. At my best, I worry you won’t. (I’ve never been better.)](http://www.asofterworld.com/index.php?id=1086)
> 
> [[A Softer World prompts](http://sleepy-skittles.tumblr.com/post/155287327552/50-a-softer-world-prompts)]

They’re getting better, Viktor thinks.

He remembers a time when Yuuri would look at him, just _look_ at him, and expect him to understand the galaxies held in his eyes. As if Viktor were wise enough to be able to reach into the depths of him, when all he’s ever been is a prodigy brought up to eat blood, sweat, and tears, and more intelligent than Yakov would like, at times.

Now, Yuuri understands that words hold their weight. The same way that Viktor learned his Yuuri was different from him— brought up on soft affection instead of love wrapped up in barbs and yells meant to push him to be better.

But they’re not so different, when one looks hard enough.

“I could have been you, in another lifetime,” Yuuri says, once. He looks distracted, less thoughtful as he is staring at nothing when he brings his cup of tea up to his mouth. “If I had been born somewhere else, brought up somewhere else.”

“Katsuki Yuuri, Living Legend,” Viktor muses. His hands are not as adept to peeling oranges as Yuuri’s are, but he keeps trying anyway. Mama Hiroko is going here and there to offer drinks and food to the other guests in the periphery of Viktor’s vision, and Viktor doesn’t bother to hide his wide smile at the love he feels for her, and for Yuuri. For this entire family that welcomed him with open arms, nigh instantly, as if they were waiting their whole lives for him to finally come home.

He’s never been the type to cry before Yuuri. He wonders what it means, that finding life and love and _happiness_ could bring him so close to tears in a way that loneliness never did.

“I’m glad you didn’t become me,” Viktor confesses.

Yuuri hums. “I thought you wanted competition?”

“I wouldn’t want it if it meant you being lonely.”

Yuuri looks at him, then. His eyes are unreadable, too full of everything and nothing for Viktor to even begin to understand what his gaze means.

Then he looks down, at Viktor’s hands, before taking the orange from him. Viktor makes to complain— he _can_ do this if he tries hard enough— but Yuuri shushes him.

(It should be strange, how pleasant it feels to have someone he loves silence him like this. Softly, quietly, not having to yell because he knows that he only needs to make a sound to get the entirety of Viktor’s attention.)

It’s in the middle of (successfully) peeling Viktor’s orange that Yuuri says, kindly, “I wouldn’t have minded, if it meant finding you eventually.”

Viktor wants to cry.

He doesn’t, yet.

“It was easier to be lonely when you didn’t know what you were missing,” Viktor admits. At this, he’s used to getting pity-filled looks, sympathetic frowns, and awkward silences. He knows it’s too much, that _he’s_ too much, because his ex-lovers have said as much before.

Still, his Yuuri always surprises him.

Yuuri smiles a sad, heartbreaking smile. He says, not trying to sound sympathetic as he is just _understanding,_ “It’s hard to miss what you never had, right?”

“What was yours?” Viktor says, wondering just what it was that Yuuri never had that he didn’t think he’d miss. His family is so full of love, his hometown so full of support for him, that Viktor struggles trying to think of what would be Yuuri’s equivalent of Viktor’s loneliness.

Yuuri looks up at him. He smiles, shyly.

“You,” he says.

Viktor blinks at him, mouth falling open. Yuuri takes it as his chance to gently push a slice of orange into his mouth, which he gratefully, but dazedly, chews.

“You were always someone to aspire to,” Yuuri says, cheeks a gentle pink as he sets down the remaining slices of orange on the rind on the table. “But I never really had you. I never really _meant_ to get you in the way that I did, but now that I have you,” his voice trails away, coming back in a murmur, “I really don’t want to let you go, even if it’s selfish of me.”

“Please,” Viktor says, reaching out. Yuuri doesn’t hesitate to take his hand, keeping them warm in both of his palms, and Viktor is just so _thankful_ that he can have this at all. “Be selfish with me, Yuuri. I want you to.”

“Don’t you ever think you deserve better?” Yuuri asks instead.

“Don’t you ever think that I think the same?” Viktor asks right back.

Yuuri huffs out a laugh. “It’s strange, that you really mean that,” he says, releasing Viktor’s hand to pick off another slice of orange and feeding it to him, who eagerly takes it with a smile. “This man I aspired to, unknowingly longed for, thinking that he doesn’t deserve me.”

“You’re so much more than you think you are, Yuuri,” Viktor says, plucking the remaining half of the orange from Yuuri’s hand. Yuuri gives him a look, before settling into an amused smile when Viktor holds out a piece for him to eat.

“Mm,” Yuuri hums, all softness and love and sweet things as he takes the slice Viktor offers to him. He smiles and he’s ever more beautiful in his growing confidence; it’s absolutely no wonder that Viktor, among others, continues to fall further in love with him.

“I know, Vitya.”

**Author's Note:**

> here's the [tumblr version](http://jadedgalvanizer.tumblr.com/post/169181534038/prompt-at-my-worst-i-worry-youll-realize-you) if anyone wants to like/reblog on there!
> 
> any comments, suggestions, and concrit would be much appreciated! thank you very much for reading!! ♥♥ happy new year everyone!!


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